Shri Sanjib Kumar Mohanty, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India addressed the students of the institute and shared his valuable knowledge on Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and its importance to the corporate world.

We took this opportunity to understand and learn the following aspects of the IPR:

Intellectual Property Rights

Any unique proposition in a product which helps us to identify a brand and is legally registered, is the intellectual property right of the particular brand. Brand is not only a product, but goodwill, recall value and added value. In our day to day lives, we come across various brands and the young generation has become increasingly become brand conscious. Even movies promote brands. When everything is created, it needs protection. This is where IPR comes in. It allows creators, or owners, of patents, trademarks or copyrighted works to benefit from their own work or investment in a creation.

Industrial Property includes patents for inventions, trademarks, industrial designs and geographical indications.

Copyright covers literary works, films, music, artistic works and architectural design. Rights related to copyright include those of performing artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in their recordings, and broadcasters in their radio and television programs.

Patent act grants exclusive rights for a limited period of time. The elements that the invention should have are novelty, utility and non-obvious. Patents offer incentives to individuals by recognizing their creativity and offering the possibility of material reward. These incentives encourage innovation, which in turn enhances the quality of human life.

Trademark act grants rights to such innovations which are distinctive in nature. They are provided to source identifiers like logos, signature, word mark, device mark, colour mark, smell, gesture, style, corporate brands etc. A trademark is a sign used by a company to distinguish its goods and services from those produced by others. It gives its owner the right to prevent others from using the trademark.

An industrial design refers to the ornamental or aesthetic specifications of an article. Industrial designs are applied to wide variety of products from technical instruments to watches and also to handicrafts, vehicles, architectural structures and leisure goods. Protecting industrial designs helps to promote economic development by encouraging creativity in the industrial and manufacturing sectors, as well as in traditional arts and crafts.

A geographical indication is a sign used on goods that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation due to that place of origin. They may also highlight specific qualities of a product that are due to human factors found in the product’s place of origin, such as specific manufacturing skills. A geographical indication guarantees to consumers that a product was produced in a certain place and has certain characteristics that are due to that place of production.